Ask Lemmy

Grocery store basil normally has about 3 plants (like the other person is saying). For best success, buy the SMALLEST plans, and un pot them when you get home. Shake them apart, but be carefull with the roots. A few broken minor roots is OK, but try not to break the major roots. Then plant them separately into their own pots. When watering, do not water from the top. Get a pot with multiple drain hole at the bottom edges (not the singular center hole kind) and place it in a watering saucer. Fill the saucer and let the soil wick up the water. This makes it easy to see when it needs water and makes it basically impossible to over or under water, just keep the saucer fill. Try to keep the plants in a warm and humid place if possible.

If you do it right, it ends up being easier to maintain and grows larger plants. If you want to look into how to grow the biggest basil plants then look into the pruning techniques to encourage growth. I have grown some monster basil bushes and they all started from grocery store plants unless I wanted a specific type.

Idk about where you are, but basil plants sold in grocery stores by me are always way way too densely planted. They throw like 25 seeds in one small pot, which puts out a lot of foliage to look good for a very short window. If you harvest basil like you are "supposed to", any regrowth becomes basically impossible, and the plants die. The better way is to just cut off whole stems until there's only one or two. Or, if you want to keep a basil plant, just buy one from a gardening store, not a grocery store.